By Miss AJ Williams
Michigan Chronicle
https://michiganchronicle.com/
Some kinds of exhaustion linger, even after a full night’s sleep.
It’s the kind of tiredness that comes from always being the dependable one—the person who keeps the family organized, answers every call, solves problems, meets deadlines, and still manages to be there for everyone else.
At The Sisters’ Couch in Detroit, founder and therapist Alandra Chuney Jackson, LMSW, is creating a space where Black women can do something they are rarely encouraged to do: set their burdens down.
“I want her to exhale,” Jackson said. “I want you to walk through the door and feel like you can take a deep breath.”
The Sisters’ Couch started in 2018 as a mental wellness initiative focused on conversation and community. Since then, it has become a physical wellness hub where Black women can gather, rest, connect, and find support. This growth makes sense, since Jackson realized that even being close to mental health resources doesn’t always make it easy to ask for help.
While she was in graduate school to become a therapist, Jackson realized she was having trouble admitting her own mental health needs.
“I was in denial about it,” she said. “Here I was going to school to become a therapist, learning about mental health every day, and still having a hard time acknowledging that I needed support myself.”
Around that time, one of her sisters mentioned she was going to therapy. What struck Jackson was that, even with her training and her sister’s experience, they had never really talked about their mental health together.
This disconnect made her wonder: If two sisters could go through mental health struggles without ever talking about it, how many other Black women were doing the same?
“That is why I created The Sisters’ Couch,” Jackson said. “I wanted to create a space where Black women could have real conversations about mental health without shame or judgment.”
That mission is also why Jackson calls The Sisters’ Couch a “soft space.”
For generations, Black women have been praised for their strength, self-sufficiency, and resilience. While these qualities can be a source of pride, Jackson says they can also be limiting if strength is the only way people see Black womanhood.
“Softness, to me, means being able to show up without immediately having expectations placed on you,” she said.
At The Sisters’ Couch, Jackson wants women to be seen for more than their productivity, job title, motherhood, relationship status, or what they do for others. Sometimes caring means asking how a woman is taking care of herself. Other times, it means celebrating when she sets a boundary, just like you would celebrate a promotion.
The idea of softness shows up in the space itself. Jackson chose plants, cozy furniture, gentle colors, and areas where women can relax and feel at home.
“I wanted you to walk in and feel your shoulders come down a little bit,” she said.
The environment matches Jackson’s broader view of wellness. As a therapist, she values clinical care, but she also believes healing goes beyond what happens in a therapy session.
“I absolutely believe in therapy,” she said. “But I also believe healing is bigger than what happens between two people in a therapy room.”
Jackson says that for Black women, mental health is tied to the cultural and social realities of daily life, like racism, sexism, spirituality, caregiving, family, and community. That’s why The Sisters’ Couch offers conversations about grief, motherhood, trauma, boundaries, self-care, and caregiving, along with yoga, rest, and other wellness practices.
“Sometimes healing looks like therapy,” Jackson said. “Sometimes it is sitting in a circle and realizing somebody else has felt exactly what you have felt. Sometimes it is movement. Sometimes it is rest.”
This philosophy will be part of “Let’s Talk About Black Moms and Mental Health,” a small retreat The Sisters’ Couch is hosting on Sept. 20 for 15 Black mothers.
Jackson says the retreat is meant to give mothers space to admit something that often goes unspoken: Motherhood can be both deeply rewarding and deeply challenging.
“I think Black mothers especially need spaces where we can say that out loud without somebody assuming we do not love our children,” she said.
In the past, about 50 women and vendors attended the event. This year, Jackson chose to limit it to 15 mothers to make it more reflective and retreat-like. The group will talk about the joys and challenges of motherhood, and learn about postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, and other mental health topics.
Still, Jackson doesn’t want Black motherhood to be seen only as a struggle.
“There is joy here too,” she said. “There is laughter. There is identity. There is the question of who you are outside of being somebody’s mother.”
That question is at the heart of The Sisters’ Couch.
Who is a Black woman when she isn’t solving problems, working, caregiving, or keeping everything together?
Jackson hopes the answer starts with giving yourself permission—to need support, to rest, to feel joy, and to exist without always having to earn care.
“Once you know what that feels like,” she said, “hopefully you start creating more opportunities for yourself to do it.”
